Well, it was the local town rodeo last night and we had a great time. The weather moved off a few hours earlier leaving some breaks in the clouds and glorious milky light coming down. I could kick myself for not having any slide film loaded in the 35mm (yeah, call me old school – it has a hellaciously better grain, people). I had the digital, though, and got a couple nice shots.The opening is always very patriotic and this gal was just gorgeous. What a smile – and the look of her later racing across the ring, hair flying? What that must feel like…

The Mutton Busting (putting tikes on 1/2 shaven sheep and setting them loose) was hilarious! I love the calf scramble (a bunch of kids chasing a wee herd of calves to take the ribbon off their tails) but the mutton busting was even better. One little gal had such perfect form that she rode the darn thing almost to the other end of the ring! And, in the end, sheep and gal went ass over tea kettle. She stood up, brushed herself off, adjusted her hair and strutted back to the gates, smiling. She made 88 seconds and won. She also got the best applause of the evening.There were little photographic vignettes all over the place but without my good camera and lenses it was impossible to catch them. Small town life – amazingly normal and healthy.

So no one else is really here and those who are here aren’t doing much (except for Jason because he’s the best and never slacks – though he is damnably fast at the “get the only custard doughnut first” race that we have Fri AM’s). I’ve surfed, I’ve worked, I’ve tried to wheedle a seat on an earlier flight for my Main Man here at the office but nothing has made the time move along. So…I shall resort to this – blabbing about nothing to the enrichment of no one.

*~*~*~*

Do you know how hard it is to find nice blouses when your boobs are the equivalent of wearing a set of water wings on your chest? I have nearly surrendered. I resorted to consorting with those very strange creatures who deploy themselves under the heading “LDS”. My gentle reader, they even offer “temple” underoos. Yessss…it’s a bodysuit with long sleeves. Because your barren flesh might offend the God that made the flesh – er – fleshy. We shall all be driven mad with lust at the sight of your…forearms! Verily, yes!

Sigh…the things human beings will conjure up to drive down their natural senses.

Anyway – blouses – so I have ordered this thing and if it doesn’t fit or is ugly as hitting – um – God – I think I shall just give up. You know what I wanted? Oh, I knew I should have just paid some good tailor a fair sum to manage it for me…I wanted this – no, no – I coveted this:

Lovely, no? Instead, I have done what every woman knows is the most foolish thing in the world for an important event: I have gone with separates.

I can hear you cackling, you know.

Oh, sure. I have the perfect divine skirt. Yes! But if the above-referenced bit of fluff doesn’t fit? Sca-rewed, people. And, to tell you the truth, it only serves me right for being so silly. I brought it on myself.

But I suppose there are other worries. We’ve the cake reception to care for still (hey – the whole process changed recently at the facility. How was I to know?), the dinner location to work out, and the final list of Goings On to issue to the attendees once I can get a dag blamed headcount. (What is wrong with people that they cannot follow clear instructions?) I am not panicking. Yet.

In other news, I worked out relatively hard yesterday and can feel it now – the squats echoing in the deep parts of my buns, the nose crushers in my tri’s – and the push-ups! Yes, they’re joining in, too. I absolutely ADORE the home gym that Trooper has made for us. It’s fantastic. But he is so clear on what he will be doing while I just putter about. I used to be really good about it – I was very diligent and focused. I think I need to return to that again. Even if it does mean we cannot chit chat whilst working out. I have this thing – I have to feel what I am doing and sometimes that means closing my eyes and closing out the world. I can have great form if I get deeply focused.

Do you know what I wish I could have? (Assuming, of course, the boob job works out and all that…) It’s a lot unrealistic considering my physique. LOL I know! But I mean the general ratio of things – the balance of it. I adore that perfection and while I might never know it, I do know that I can at least be my version thereof.

I was once…

So, that’s my day. Between work, I’ve managed to update the blogmonster and distract myself from the boredom. Sure, there were more important things to say but I didn’t want to be a brainiac. What I really wanted was to be at Whole Foods perusing produce. LOL I want to do nothing but mill about and be one of those lazy shoppers, just going store to store and having no pressure.

Oh yeah, it’s music again – this time, Heart, courtesy of DirecTV’s special. They performed the whole Dreamboat Annie album and tossed in a couple others – I adore their Led Zeppelin covers!

But – I hope this comes out as the kind criticism it is – Ann is not what she once was. I know, I know – we’re not to pick on the obese. But I cannot help it – she is buried in the flesh and her voice sounds like it. It once lilted and spun like those crazy scissortail flycatcher birds. You can see her straining to give it to the people – I don’t mean to take that from her at all. I just can’t help wishing she’d give it all back to us.

That was one of the first albums I bought – the very first was, of course, Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon. But Heart came almost immediately after. It was a storybook unfolding rather than a scattershot of selections. And she sang in my key, damn it, which is always a pleasant thing when all of 13 years old and just aching to belong.

And then came Little Queen – I stared at the cover for hours, thinking of how, when I was older, I would dress that way and live in the woods with dark men. My God, the ways our minds work at that age. What was strange was that in about 3 years I would meet a woman who was identical in appearance to Ann and through that chance meeting turn my chaotic life into one of…surreal hazard. I cannot help but think of her when I hear the music and see those old album covers. Alike, we were – dark and light with knowing smirks and disdainful gestures.

So much time and landscape has moved since then. Loves and lives, homes and horrors…I look back more now, I think, because I am at that precipice of age and it’s like the mountain, once summited, will prevent that look back – the past will be hidden behind it once crossed and I have to give it another glance.

I expect, too, that it’s time to be looking forward. I am not a planner and not terribly good at goal setting. For me, the future hasn’t been something…assured. So I never looked too far ahead. But I think it might be time, now. Time…